


maybe i don't want heaven

by daybr3aks



Series: heaven and hell and everything in between [1]
Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: ALSO IMPLIED 9 LIVES AU, Angel of Death AU, Angst, Jinhwi Fic Fest Round 1, Kinda fluff, M/M, also major character death although one of them is dead to begin with????, and one dies 9 times BUT, im not evil, it's a Happy Ending i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-04 19:05:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12174831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daybr3aks/pseuds/daybr3aks
Summary: Before, home to Jinyoung was heaven. Now, heaven is nothing more than locked-up gates and home is the short-lived reality wrapped in Daehwi’s arms.Or alternatively, in a universe where one soul can only reincarnate nine times before they are sent off to oblivion, Jinyoung is an angel of death exiled from heaven, and Daehwi is both a punishment and a blessing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for Jinhwi Fic Fest Round 1. Prompt #88 Can You Hear My Heart- Epik High ft. Lee Hi.

Jinyoung watches everything unravel in front of him.

The engine of the bus quiet down as it parks by the next stop. Unsuspecting passengers climb aboard, thinking today was just like every other passing day. Students are on their phones, gossiping about who’s it and who’s not; the middle-aged are weighing their life crisis in their heads. The bus driver yawns as he pulls on the starter and the engine roars back to life again.

Jinyoung takes a look at the pocketwatch on his palm, the glass broken but the hands still tick away. _Three minutes,_ he whispers in his head before standing up from where he sat at the small café. He tips down his fedora and starts to pace away, counting backwards as he disappears within the crowd by the road crossing.

 _Six, five, four._ He reaches the other side of the road right when the light turns green. He scans both his left and his right. “Thief!” he hears an old lady yell as a man passes by him speedily on his bike.

 _Three, two._ The bus is heading north, right on schedule. A squint, and he sees the bus driver bobbing his head up and down, eyelids drooping slowly. Opposite it, a taxi is driving past the speed limit, with a huge truck not too far behind. Jinyoung closes his eyes and waits.

 _One,_ and it happens.

He hears the skidding of burnout tires against asphalt as screams of bystanders grow louder and louder. Jinyoung opens his eyes in time to see everything topple down like dominos. The bike loses its balance when it hits a small fruit stand, tumbling down the road right when the taxi speeds down. The two crash against each other, the thief falling off his bike and hitting his head hard on the concrete while the taxi driver loses his grip on the stirring wheel and crashes into the other cars following right behind him. The bus driver sees the disarray of vehicles blocking his way a second too late, barely making a turn to avoid the earlier collision but crashes onto the huge truck he had failed to notice. The impact topples the bus over right as Jinyoung sees a flock of black shadows fly above the wreck like vultures.

The reapers are here. His army is here.

Jinyoung checks his clock. _September 11, 3:45pm. Number of crossers, 38._ He lifts his head up and sees the souls of the victims of the accident slowly rise from their corpse, eyes dull and face passive like they’re in a trance, just like every other soul calling.

“Hyung,” Jinyoung turns around and sees Guanlin, his second-in-command, jogging up towards him. He nods in his direction in acknowledgment. “Should I do the directing back to headquarters this time too?”

Jinyoung scans the aftermath of the collision. The other reapers were now gathering the souls into a single pile. Amidst the numerous pale faces of the souls they were scheduled to collect today, Jinyoung finds a familiar face in the crowd. His throat goes dry.

“Can I see the death schedule for 3:45?” he asks first which Guanlin immediately complies to, handing him the clipboard he was holding. It doesn’t take Jinyoung a minute to find the name that matched the familiar face. He brushes a hand past the name written in gold ink softly, before giving it back to Guanlin. “Yeah, you do that, Lin. I’ll do the guiding at the back,” Jinyoung pats him in the shoulder before moving towards the back of the line the other reapers had finally managed to settle.

It doesn’t take Jinyoung long to find who he was looking for. The boy was on the far end of the line, a little behind the rest. Jinyoung watches him stand and stare at his dead body, his face remaining unfazed but Jinyoung catches something off.

When a person dies, the first thing that happens is the reaper’s calling, or where the soul leaves the host body after a reaper comes to collect them. The soul is usually in a trance-like state at this stage, meaning they are completely void of emotions, and they only go back to being more humane when they reach the House of Death, or what Guanlin had referred to as headquarters, which is where the next phase happens.

But Jinyoung catches emotions in the boy’s eyes, for that he is sure. Because he has seen those eyes, has been wanting to meet them, for far too many times now to know, to be sure of it.

“Lee Daehwi,” Jinyoung calls, and Daehwi turns towards the voice, but not before he catches him wiping a tear right before it can even fall. A soul, who should be in a state of numbness, was crying for his own demise, which just makes Jinyoung think more that maybe even a system as seemingly perfect as that of heaven’s can be just as flawed too.

“You’re a reaper too, right? Is my time really up now?” Daehwi asks him softly. He’s looking at his way, but he’s not looking at him. Humans, even in their soul form, can’t see immortal beings in their real state. In Daehwi’s eyes, Jinyoung was nothing more than a talking black shadow who was here to take him away, and Jinyoung doesn’t know why that fact leaves a bile taste in his mouth.

“By the power vested in me by the seraphs who guard the realms of the afterlife,” Jinyoung hears Guanlin say the chant to opening the passageway back to the House of Death from the front of the long line of crossers. He takes a step towards Daehwi, towering over him just as he was about to catch up with the rest. Jinyoung takes Daehwi’s hand in his, the latter not being able to see the action but Jinyoung catches the sight of him shiver slightly from his cold touch.

“Mr. Reaper, are you not going to let me pass through?” Daehwi asks, his eyes locked on the souls marching further and further away from them.

Jinyoung doesn’t answer his question, but instead traces the nine lines of gold decorating Daehwi’s left wrist with his fingers. “Do you wish to live longer?”

Daehwi lifts his head, his eyes looking straight at his that Jinyoung almost thinks Daehwi might actually see how wide-eyed he looks at the moment. While Daehwi’s face still remains stoic like it had been awhile ago, his eyes reflect what Jinyoung assumes was fear. And hope.

“If I say yes,” Daehwi answers tentatively, “are you going to save me?”

Jinyoung knows that Daehwi is aware of his fate. The mortals on earth talk of the nine lives system as if it was a myth, but in a way believes in its existence still. One mortal soul can be reincarnated nine times, with each reincarnation a fresh start meaning you are completely void of your previous lives’ memories. Once all nine lives have been used up, the soul is sent to eternal oblivion, where they walk in nothingness for as long as time exists.

Daehwi was in his ninth life when the accident happened.

“I want to save you,” Jinyoung replies, his hand still holding on to Daehwi’s.

“Why?” Daehwi shoots back, and before Jinyoung could answer, he feels the strong gush of wind sweep past them and the booming voice of thunder signaling the opening of the skies to grant the reapers and the souls entry to the heavenly realm.

Jinyoung turns back to Daehwi, “That’s what I want to know too.”

He pulls him closer by the arm, and leans in to close the gap between their lips. While immortal beings such as himself have hearts that no longer beat, Jinyoung feels something twitch and ache somewhere in his chest. He kisses him until Daehwi’s soul fades into a small, golden ball of light and lands safely in his palms.

“O, seraphs that guide the realm of the afterlife, grant this soul safe passage into his next life,” Jinyoung whispers before blowing softly into it, the ball of light flying into the wind like a dandelion before it disappears from his sight.

“Thirty-four, thirty five,” Jinyoung hears one of the reapers count loudly. He strides towards their direction to catch up with the line, but not before taking a glance at the crowd who are unaware of the soul calling that coexisted within their time frame. He watches them grieve and mourn for those that they had lost today.

Jinyoung had never fully understood the human concept of life and death. He doesn’t understand why people cry when the ones they love die, why they grieve and why they torment themselves with guilt and regret. But as his fingers graze his lips, Jinyoung thinks that maybe in a way, he does.

“Thirty-six, thirty-seven…huh? I could’ve sworn there were thirty-eight when I first checked the list?” He hears the reaper counting ask out loud. Jinyoung feels Guanlin’s eyes on him, but he pays him no heed.

With his signature passive face, Jinyoung says, “If that’s all of them, then let’s go. We got a ton of work ahead of us,” before entering the passageway back to the House of Death and hoping Daehwi’s soul safely landed into the universe he was sent to next.

 

❊

 

“Thank you for coming, sir! Enjoy your day,” Daehwi beams at the customer as he exits the café, the windchimes above the doorframe singing along with the wind as he pulls the door open on his way out.

The smile on Daehwi’s face stays as he wipes the front counter spotless. The sun was setting, the clock telling him he has thirty minutes left on his shift. Sunday afternoons are always when the café is at its busiest, but Daehwi manages to still be all sunshine and rainbows even after a tiring day of work, even going as much as humming a Disney song while he wipes newly washed teacups dry.

If there was one thing constant in all of the universes Daehwi had been reincarnated into, it’s his smile. Daehwi’s smile radiates like the sun, the moon and the stars. It’s warm, and genuine, and everything that made Jinyoung feel a hundred emotions that he was supposed to be incapable of feeling all at once.

Jinyoung could watch Daehwi smile for as long as time exists, if he was allowed to.

“This is why that tall reaper friend of yours is starting to suspect you. You’re _so_ obvious, dude.”

Jinyoung sets down his drink and turns to the demon sitting across from him, eyes twinkling with mischief and lips turned upward into a smirk. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t even bothered banishing Jihoon just yet. An angel with a high caliber such as himself could easily make a C-class demon such as him cease to exist with just one flick of a hand, but here he was, sharing a cup of coffee with him in downtown Seoul at five pm, just like every other Sunday afternoon.

Maybe Jinyoung enjoyed the company of his demon acquaintance as much as he hates to admit it, but right now, all he wants is for Jihoon to shut up before he’s tempted to burn him with holy water.

“Guanlin’s not suspecting me, Ji.”

“Oh, so his name is Guanlinie? He’s cute,” Jihoon coos, chin propped up by both of his palms. “But really now, he’s not suspecting you when he double checks the timetables now and asks for your whereabouts like every hour? Jinyoungie, I know. I sneak into the House of Death all the time to make fun of your lackeys, and I _see_ a lot of things, okay. I see how he looks at you, that wary look in his eyes every time—”

“Everything’s fine,” Jinyoung bites the inside of his cheek, eyes looking everywhere else but the demon in front of him. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Jihoon huffs and sinks back into his seat. “I’m just worried, okay? I hate angels, but you’re cool and all so I hate you less, and seeing you be condemned to eternal damnation would bother me too, so please be extra careful. In fact, you shouldn’t even be here.”

“The seraphs don’t bother checking up on reapers’ activities in the mortal world, so I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” Jinyoung reassures the demon with a smile. He turns to Daehwi who was now packing up and getting ready to leave, his manager giving him compliments for another job well done.

“You can’t hide everything forever, Jinyoung. One day, everyone’s gonna know that death has been cheated off a few times too many now by Death himself,” Jihoon warns him, a forlorn look casting on his face. “And what happens then? Do you honestly think they’ll let you off the hook that easily? Your millenium of service in heaven won’t save you. Nothing can save you. Daehwi can’t save you.”

Jinyoung’s eyes doesn’t leave Daehwi’s smiling face when he answers, “I’m aware, Ji.”

“You’re aware, yet you’re still here?”

“I’m still here. I’ll always be here.”

Jihoon sighs, “Okay, you’re obviously whipped for mortal boy David here and no amount of convincing you that stalking him like some creep even though he can’t see you is a terrible idea. What does he have anyway that had you, Mister I’d-Do-Anything-And-Everything-For-The-Supreme-Beings-Of-The-Heavenly-Realm of all people, turn back on heaven?”

Jinyoung smiles, “He makes me feel like I don’t need heaven. He makes me feel human.”

 

Daehwi walks on his way back home, just like every other working day in the café. He would stop by the convenience store first to buy bread and his favorite strawberry milk, and then pass by the bridge atop the riverbank to feed the cat that lives nearby. A few paces forward and he’ll be in front of the vegetable stand handled by this old lady he’s quite fond of and buys from her stuff he already has and probably doesn’t even need, before he’ll end up in front of his apartment’s door.

Jinyoung has his routine memorized. Jinyoung has him memorized for so long that it scares him how much he knows about the boy, and how much he lets everything about Daehwi affect him.

Daehwi flicks on the light switch and heads towards the kitchen to start preparing for his dinner. Jinyoung floats near him and watches over with a fond smile.

 

❊

 

 

The first time Jinyoung met Daehwi was on the boy’s first visit to the House of Death, a good millenium ago, if Jinyoung remembers correctly. He doesn’t remember the date, but he remembers everything else clearly and vividly like it hadn’t been lifetimes ago.

In his first life, Daehwi was a noble from a royal bloodline, his hair styled up as he’s dressed with silk and gold from head to toe when he entered the doors of the House of Death for the first time. Jinyoung has met every mortal that have graced the earth. He has met kings and queens, village maidens, royal soldiers, everybody who had been claimed as their generation’s Aphrodite and Adonis, but never did any of them make him look twice. None of them made it hard to look away, until him.

“Name?”

“Lee Daehwi.”

“First life. Time of death, 1:29 am,” Jinyoung’s voice shrinks at every word, his head feeling lighter than usual. “Cause of death, shot by an arrow in the heart.”

Jinyoung looks up slightly from the clipboard he was holding to take a quick glance at the mortal who sat across from him. The table in between them was barely even a meter long, but it made Jinyoung feel like they were oceans apart. For someone dubbed as emotionless, even as far as _heartless_ , Jinyoung feels like he’s being pulled by the small boy whose eyes were too busy wandering around the décor of the room instead of meeting his own piercing gaze.

He gives him a once-over—the clothes he was wearing were definitely of royalty, but Jinyoung catches the tattered edges of the sleeves of his hanbok, and the huge rip across his chest from the arrow that pierced and brought Daehwi to him.

And the next thing Jinyoung knew, he’s hyperaware of every little thing. The ticking of the hands of his pocketwatch suddenly seem so loud, the air feels chillier, and inside a place where the concept of time wasn’t supposed to exist, Jinyoung feels like every second was a minute and every minute was an hour. The whole duration of him sitting across the blond-haired boy seem to drag, slower and slower.

Jinyoung doesn’t understand. He’s encountered deaths that were so much more gruesome, so much more painful, but he feels an aching sensation somewhere inside him that makes him just want to get up from his seat and stitch the huge rip close. He doesn’t understand; it’s not like this mortal boy was any different than the rest of the souls that had come to visit him. He doesn’t understand what made this boy so special, and he doesn’t want to understand.

Jinyoung lifts his head up, and sees that Daehwi’s eyes were already on him, a knowing smile playing on his lips. He feels his supposedly non-beating heart drop.

Daehwi sinks comfortably on the velvet chair he’s sitting on, “Like what you see, Mr. Reaper?”

“So you know who I am,” Jinyoung gets up slowly from his seat to get the tray holding a porcelain box, and a tea set. He sets it down on the table, eyes roaming everywhere but at the boy in front of him.

“The ghoul-like black shadow façade gave it away,” Daehwi says, chin propped up by one hand. “Although your voice sounds a little too honey-like to be Death…I expected you to sound colder, _scarier,_ not like someone I wouldn’t mind hearing talk for an entire week without pause.”

Jinyoung feels his hand shake a little as he lifts up the ceramic pot. He’s still looking down when he pours the tea into a cup and asks, “Human, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…..I like your voice,” the playful smile on Daehwi’s lips still not leaving as he cuts Jinyoung off when the reaper was about to ask what he was doing, “I’m flirting with you. I’m flirting with Death, because I might be able to change his mind about taking my soul away if I try. Don’t you think so too?”

This time, Jinyoung finally lifts his head up to meet Daehwi’s calculating gaze, the boy’s eyes filled with mirth and something Jinyoung can’t quite pinpoint, but he knows he’s searching for a sign to say he was right. This time, Jinyoung doesn’t look away.

“What made you think that you, a mere mortal, could change my mind?” Jinyoung’s thundering voice questions. “Death is irrevocable. Heaven doesn’t do special favors for anyone. What made you think you were special enough to make me change my mind?”

“The way you look at me,” Daehwi answers without hesitation as he leans back on his chair, arms crossed.

Something inside Jinyoung stirs. He really shouldn’t be having this conversation. The process of sending a human soul onto their next life wasn’t supposed to drag this long. His job was simply to explain what awaits the soul in the afterlife and then do his reaper thing, but Jinyoung finds himself retorting back before he could even stop himself.

“What about the way I look at you? _How_ do I look at you?”

“You look at me like you want to save me,” Daehwi tilts his head to the side slightly, “Don’t you? Do you want to save me, Mr. Reaper?”

Jinyoung feels the air thicken around them, his grip on the ceramic pot tightening at every passing moment. Instead of answering him, he grabs the porcelain box and gets up from his seat, stopping right in front of Daehwi. His head feels even lighter now that he’s seen him up close.

“You can’t see my face.”

Daehwi’s eyes glint as he lifts his head up to stare. “Yeah, I can’t…but I can feel your eyes on me. I can feel the heaviness of your stare ever since the moment I entered. Am I wrong, Mr. Reaper?”

“Arm out,” Jinyoung stirs away from the conversation, the lightheadedness getting stronger each passing moment. When Daehwi doesn’t move to his command, he yanks his left arm, the coldness of his touch making Daehwi visibly shiver. Jinyoung opens the porcelain box and takes out a needle and a golden thread. “This might hurt a little.”

“I was shot in the heart by an arrow. A needle means nothing,” Daehwi replies, but Jinyoung catches him bite his lower lip when he pricked his arm with the needle holding the golden thread. He watches as the line of gold move from his arm towards his wrist, right beside the first line of gold.

“Is there really no convincing you to spare me just this one time?” Daehwi pouts as he takes his arm off of Jinyoung’s hold. Jinyoung watches him stroke the newly formed line decorating his wrist.

“It’s still your first death. You still have a lot of lives left.”

“You know nine lives are never enough, right?” Daehwi shoots, “No number will ever be enough.”

Jinyoung examines Daehwi’s face. In this proximity, he can see the way his eyes are formed unevenly and the small mole right below his lips. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking when he suddenly lifts one hand up to cup Daehwi’s face. “Do you wish to live longer?”

“If I say yes, will you grant me that pass?”

Jinyoung could. He was Death, he was capable of a lot of things involving the realm between the living and the dead. He held that kind of power, that kind of authority. Jinyoung could, but he wouldn’t.

He pushes the teacup towards him, “Drink up.”

Daehwi scoffs, a bitter smile etching his face. “I never should’ve assumed you were, in a way, attracted to me just because of how heavy your stare was. You probably look at everyone who has gone through here the same way, am I right?”

Jinyoung wants to tell him he’s wrong, but he doesn’t.

When he doesn’t answer, Daehwi sighs and lifts the cup up to drink from it. A strong gush of wind breaks into the room, engulfing him into a ball of blinding light.

“See you again soon?” Daehwi says, the same playful smile from earlier back on his lips. All Jinyoung could do was nod as he watches him disappear into the light and fade away from him. A flower storm of gardenias fill the wooden floors of the room after the light dims. Jinyoung picks up a gardenia.

He had never felt emptier, and more confused.

 

❊

 

“Sir, wake up,” Jinyoung hears someone say as he feels his shoulder being shaken, the blinding morning light greeting him when he opens his eyes. “There’s trouble in headquarters. Seraph Minhyun is looking for you,”

He jolts up and immediately turns around, only to come face to face with a smirking Jihoon. Jinyoung groans and lies back down, already expecting the words that were gonna come out of his mouth.

“You fell asleep,” Jihoon muses. “Immortal beings have no concept of sleep, Jinyoungie.”

Jinyoung closes his eyes and pretends not to hear. He wasn’t going to have this conversation this early in the morning, and with a demon on top of that.

He’s aware that angels, and even demons, aren’t supposed to feel exhaustion or sleepiness. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep last night. His last memory before everything faded into black was of Daehwi singing along to the demo he had planned on submitting to this record company sometime this week. He doesn’t remember lying his head down on the floor and closing his eyes.

It worries him. It’s not like this was the first time this has happened. In fact, it has happened countless of times now that it’s starting to trouble him. Having emotions and sleeping were human traits he should be void of. He wasn’t supposed to feel, but just looking at Daehwi makes his heart leap and ache. He wasn’t supposed to doze off, but just listening to Daehwi sing makes him dream.

Daehwi makes him feel human.

“He already left for work two hours ago, if you’re looking for him by the way,” Jinyoung hears Jihoon say somewhere behind him. He finds him lying comfortably on the couch watching television. Jinyoung just nods in response and slowly gets up, his pocketwatch telling him it’s already ten in the morning so of course Daehwi was at work.

“He was also followed by Guanlinie on his way out.”

Jinyoung’s eyes widen as he sprints towards where Jihoon was in a flash, and grabs him by the collar of his black sleeved shirt. “What do you mean Guanlin followed him on his way out? What happened while I was asleep, Jihoon?” he lets go of every word heavily, the threat lacing every syllable.

Jihoon, looking unfazed, shrugs, “I actually don’t know. When I got here, your mortal boy was leaving already. I saw your tall reaper friend downstairs, so I figured he was here for him.”

Jinyoung shoves Jihoon back onto the couch, the latter immediately yelling ‘ouch’ on reflex, as Jinyoung climbs up the window, ready to fly out to where Daehwi was.

“You know that if you stop him now, it’ll just raise the assumptions in Guanlin’s head, right?” Jihoon warns him, his arms crossed as he looks at Jinyoung with utmost seriousness that the sight takes him aback. “Are you willing to take that risk, Jinyoung?”

Jinyoung knows what was at stake. If he interfered with Guanlin’s assignment, he knows he was going to be questioned, and the moment he chooses the wrong move, the walls he had been building will all come crashing down, leaving him and his acts of treason, his _sins_ , bare to the heavenly realm.

Jinyoung smiles at Jihoon sadly, “I’m going to save him.”

Jihoon can’t help but return the sad smile as he watches Jinyoung fly into the sky like a bird, “Goodbye, Jinyoungie.”

 

❊

 

The second time Jinyoung sees Daehwi in the House of Death, Jinyoung tries not to think too much about the way Daehwi’s eyes resemble the definition of stars the Elders used to tell stories about. Jinyoung has never seen the stars before since they weren’t visible in heaven. Guanlin has told him about it when he goes for his assignments in the mortal world. He hasn’t visited the realm of the humans yet because he sees no reason to. His job was here in heaven, and not there.

But maybe he might just pay a visit, just to make sure if they do twinkle and sparkle and shine beautifully like diamonds up in the sky, like what Daehwi’s eyes seem to do in the few memories Jinyoung has of him that keep on replaying in his head like a broken record.

The third time Jinyoung sees him is when he had witnessed his death firsthand. He tries not to recall the bloodbath, the images of war, and Daehwi’s sad smile as he concentrates on pricking his arm with the needle holding the golden thread of life. Angels of death, or any other immortal being, are incapable of feeling remorse, especially on something as natural as death.

Jinyoung tries not to think about the bullets piercing Daehwi’s skin, and how he had wanted to jump into that battlefield and take in all the shots in his stead.

The fourth time, Daehwi’s clad in white and Jinyoung feels his breath hitch when he’s not even supposed to be breathing. He shakes his head of thoughts about Daehwi looking absolutely ethereal and too beautiful for his own good. He rids himself of images of Daehwi walking down the aisle, all dressed in white inside an old Romanesque cathedral, like the one wedding he had witnessed on his trip to the human realm.

He rids himself of daydreams about being the one to wait for him at the end of that aisle. Thoughts like those were delusional, and preposterous, and against all the laws of heaven and earth.

The fifth, the sixth, the seventh—every time Daehwi steps inside the House of Death, Jinyoung finds himself not wanting to let go of Daehwi’s hand more and more. He finds himself closing his eyes when Daehwi gets enveloped in a ball of light and then turn into a flower storm of gardenias.

Jinyoung finds himself thinking of him more and more even when he’s not there.

The eighth, Jinyoung knows this was no longer just a passing feeling. How could it be if Daehwi had become his constant thought for centuries now? How could it be when everyday he just wants to break out of the walls of heaven, which seems too suffocating now, and just fly down Earth to see him smile and simply live?

“Is there something wrong, Mr. Reaper?” Daehwi’s voice breaks his thoughts. Jinyoung turns to him and sees the worried look on his face, only realizing then that maybe he had been staring at him a bit too long than necessary. Jinyoung drops the needle, and leans in to rest his forehead on Daehwi’s shoulder, the latter shifting after feeling the sudden weight drop on him.

“My name is Jinyoung,” Jinyoung whispers under his breath. “You won’t remember it anyway—”

“Jinyoung,” Daehwi repeats softly, but it was enough to send volts down his spine. Only Daehwi can have such an effect on him; it’s as scary as it is relieving. “Your name is beautiful, but I feel like there’s something troubling you.”

“Someone,” Jinyoung corrects as he lifts his head up and studies him. Daehwi has his head poised up towards his direction, but he’s not meeting Jinyoung’s eyes. Jinyoung wants him to—he wants Daehwi to see how he looks at him; he wants Daehwi to tell him _how_ Jinyoung looks at him. He wants Daehwi to know. He wants himself to know.

What does it mean when you can’t stop thinking about someone? What does it mean when they’re your only passing thought every time you close your eyes and every time you open them? What does it mean when that person just makes your heart fill up you feel like it’s overflowing? What does it mean when someone makes you feel like you can conquer just about anything despite the odds? What does it mean when Daehwi makes him feel like he can go against all the laws of heaven for him to be happy?

What does it mean when seeing Daehwi happy makes him happy too?

“That’s love, Jinyoung,” Daehwi tells him, as if he had read his thoughts. He flashes him quite possibly the brightest smile he had seen from him yet that Jinyoung could hear his supposedly non-beating heart drum in his ears loud and clear. “Are you in love?”

He doesn’t know. Jinyoung never understood the concept of love. He knows of the Supreme Being’s equal love for everyone—angels, humans, and even demons alike. He knows of familial love; he’s felt it with Seraph Minhyun and Seraph Jisung who treat him like a brother. But the other kind of love, that he has no grasp of.

An angel can’t fall in love. It’s not written in the laws that maintain the balance of the worlds. It has not been heard of, even from the stories as old as time. There were no tales about angels falling in love with other angels, much more fall in love with a mortal being. Angels don’t fall in love. Angels don’t feel. They can tell what happiness is from anger and sadness and every other emotion, but they can never feel it themselves.

Jinyoung wants to tell Daehwi that he’s wrong, _so wrong_ , but he doesn’t because the words felt right. It felt so right, so accurate and true that it haunted him. Is it really love when he just wants every second with Daehwi to slow down? Is it love when just the thought of Daehwi ceasing to exist makes his head, his chest, hurt? Is it love when all he wants is for Daehwi to continue living?

“Am I?” Jinyoung’s voice shakes.

“Are you scared?” Daehwi asks him in the softest tone that it pains Jinyoung because he _doesn’t_ know, and he doesn’t want him to know. “It’s normal to be scared, angel or not. Love scares me too. How much you’re willing to put in line for a person…how much you’re willing to sacrifice—“

“Does love make one do things they never thought of doing?” Jinyoung cuts him.

“Love makes people take risks, Jinyoung. Some reckless, some courageous—it’s a part of loving someone,” Daehwi answers in a heartbeat.

“Then,” Jinyoung lifts his hands up to cup his face, eyes locking on Daehwi’s bright brown orbs that seem to held the cosmos and everything in the starry night sky that was visible on Earth. “Do you wish to live longer?”

Daehwi leans back, surprised, Jinyoung losing his hold of him. “I’m sorry—what? Live longer? Jinyoung, what do you mean? Are you even allowed to do that?”

“I want to prove something. I want answers to my questions,” Jinyoung vaguely answers back. “Lee Daehwi, is it a yes or a no?”

“Well, _yes_ , I wanna live longer, knowing what comes after this is my last life,” Daehwi throws him a hesitant look, his fingers drumming the wooden tabletop. “But what if you get in trouble? What if you get in trouble because of me? I can’t live with that guilt for the rest of my life.”

“If I do get in trouble, you wouldn’t be able to remember anything, so you won’t be feeling any guilt,” Jinyoung assures but Daehwi just throws him a pained look.

“That doesn’t make things any better, Jinyoung,” Daehwi whines.

“Then I promise I won’t get caught,” Jinyoung promises him, bringing along what he hopes was something resembling an assuring smile even though Daehwi won’t even see it. “No matter what happens, I won’t get caught.”

Daehwi brings out his pinky, “Promise?”

Jinyoung just stares at his held out fist dumbfoundedly. Daehwi snorts, “Lock your pinky with mine. It’s like an oath taking thing we do on Earth—wait, you have a pinky, right?”

Jinyoung takes out his own hand and locks his finger with Daehwi’s, letting himself drown in thoughts of how his hand fits Daehwi perfectly even if it’s just for a short while. Daehwi must’ve felt his touch because he beams at him.

“Then I’m ready, Mr. Reaper.”

Jinyoung takes out the needle holding the golden thread from the porcelain box. He pricks Daehwi’s arm with it, the golden thread making its way towards where the other eight golden lines rest on his left wrist. On cue, a strong gush of wind enters the room and envelops Daehwi into a golden light, but before he could disappear, Jinyoung grabs him by the arm and leans forward to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“Did you…just kiss me…on the cheek?” Daehwi blinks.

“It’s a marking,” Jinyoung explains as Daehwi slowly fades. “So I’ll know where you are when I need to save you.”

Daehwi smiles at him, “I don’t know why you’re going this far to help me, but thank you, Jinyoung,” and with that the light engulfing him fades and dims along with him, leaving a storm of gardenias on his wooden floor.

Jinyoung feels his ears burn, as the insides of his chest feel like they’re expanding along with the hellfire that seems to consume him from within. It’s a strange yet satisfying feeling.

 

❊

 

It doesn’t take Jinyoung long to reach where Daehwi was.

He was in his usual shift inside the café, the day seemingly going in its usual flow. Daehwi happily punches in the lady’s order of vanilla latte, casually humming along to the classical music being played inside the shop. _Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor_ , he hears Daehwi’s thoughts as he moves to whip up the customer’s coffee.

Jinyoung scans the area. He thinks it’s strange. If Guanlin was following Daehwi, then that means his time in this life was almost up. If that’s the case, then Jinyoung should’ve seen it coming. Angels of death were capable of seeing upcoming deaths with just one look on a mortal who was near his due.

He turns to Daehwi, and sees nothing. No premonition, no mirror into his future. Jinyoung continues to watch as Daehwi smiles at the lady as he hands her her cup of coffee, and concentrates hard but the only thing he gets are static waves that seem to resonate in his head, louder and louder.

If Daehwi wasn’t dying today, then what was Guanlin doing in his apartment? He couldn’t have been there for no reason. He wasn’t the type to just idle by without purpose. Jinyoung closes his eyes and concentrates harder, the intensity of his angelic power burning his skin but he lets it.

When he opens his eyes, he doesn’t see Daehwi’s upcoming death but instead, Guanlin’s piercing eyes reflected by the café window.

“What’s going on?” Jinyoung demands. “What are you doing here?”

Guanlin easily passes through the walls of the café and walks towards Jinyoung in long strides, face remaining as passive as it had always been. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that? I’m here because of an assignment. What are _you_ doing here, _sir_?”

“There is no one that is on due here, Guanlin,” Jinyoung says through gritted teeth, diverting from Guanlin’s earlier question. “I’ve scanned these mortals’ faces. No one is scheduled today.”

“Nobody but one,” Guanlin says with utmost authority that it takes Jinyoung aback. He watches as he pulls out the clipboard holding the timetables. Jinyoung feels his hand shake. “Name, Lee Daehwi. Date of birth, 29th of January 2000. Schedule, 1:37 pm.”

Jinyoung looks at the clock; it was already 1:30. _Seven minutes_. “I’ve scanned that boy, Guanlin. I didn’t see his schedule. I demand a recheck on the timetables.”

“Why?” Guanlin taunts. “Our job is to reap whoever is on the list. Why bother going through a rechecking just to make sure? Why do you _care_ so much?”

“I…don’t,” Jinyoung carefully says. “Our job is to reap, alright, but it doesn’t mean we can just take someone’s life that easily. For all we know we could’ve taken someone innocent!”

Guanlin crosses his arms, “Again, why do you _care_? Since when did you care?”

“It’s our _job_ to guide these souls safely into the afterlife. It’s not our job to take in someone who is not ready yet. My senses—“

“Your senses have been blocked by Seraph Minhyun,” Guanlin answers matter-of-factly. Jinyoung feels his mouth go dry.

The only one who can deflect an angel’s powers is a fellow angel, but one with a higher caliber. Seraphs held higher ranks than reapers. They were second-in-command, next to the Supreme Being. The fact that his powers had been blocked by a seraph means he has reached the end of the labyrinth he had been hiding in.

Guanlin takes his silence as a sign to continue, “Ever wondered why you get tired easily these days? Why you fall asleep all of a sudden? That’s because you’ve been under a block, Bae Jinyoung.”

Jinyoung feels the weight of the world come crashing down on his shoulders. He should’ve known. He should’ve seen this happening. What other ending would he have gotten other than this? This was bound to happen. He had expected it, but he didn’t expect it to be this soon.

Jinyoung feels his limbs tremble, his hands shaking as they curl up into fists, but he doesn’t let any of his fears show in his face as he turns to Guanlin, eyes shooting daggers. “ _Why?”_

“Are you really asking me why? You think we’re unaware, Bae Jinyoung?” Guanlin scoffs. “You think we don’t know what you’ve been hiding from us? Lee Daehwi—“

 _Daehwi_ , Jinyoung turns around to look at the clock. _1:35 pm._

“Oh dear, that lady forgot her wallet!” he hears Daehwi’s manager gasp.

Daehwi immediately takes his apron off, “I’ll give it back to her. I think I’ll be able to catch up to her if I run. Leave it to me, hyung.”

His manager nods as he hands him the lady’s wallet, “Alright, but hurry up, okay? There’s still a lot of work here to do.”

Daehwi smiles as he gives him a thumbs up. Jinyoung feels his head spin. _No._ He watches as Daehwi steps out of the café doors. _No, Daehwi, no._

“Don’t even try doing what I think you’re going to do, Jinyoung—“ but before Guanlin could finish, Jinyoung shoves past him and makes a run for it, out the doors after Daehwi. He can feel the hands of his pocketwatch ticking at every second.

And it happens too fast, and too soon.

The traffic light changes color. Daehwi dashes to the other side of the road right as it had turned green. A trucker who was in a rush fails to see him cross, zooming forward a little pass the speed limit. He only sees him when he’s merely an inch close, far too late to steer the wheel. A millisecond later, he would have hit Daehwi.

Time, however, freezes.

In the middle of mortals paused mid-action, Jinyoung falls on his knees, running short of breath and eyes still wide in shock. It took all of his power to stop the timeframe, the block draining his energy by the minute. He hears footsteps approach him from behind, getting louder and louder as they get nearer.

He knows what was coming.

“Bae Jinyoung,” he hears Minhyun’s familiar voice. Two pairs of strong hands hoist him up and cuff his wrists with celestial bronze. He hisses as the metal burns through his skin, stinging him more and more at every passing moment.

A millenium ago, he never would’ve thought he’d end up like this. When he was appointed Head of the reapers, this wasn’t a part of the future he had pictured out. He didn’t see himself getting handcuffed and arrested, much more the reason being a mortal being. But things happened, and things happen for a reason.

Jinyoung lets his head remain lowered when Minhyun continues, “We hereby arrest you for high treason against the Order of the Heavens.”

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Jinyoung barely says audibly.

He feels the weight of Minhyun’s stare as he orders the holy knights, “Take him away.”

One of the knights summons his scepter and chants for entry inside the heavenly realm. Jinyoung lets them drag him around. Fighting them was useless since there was nothing he could do now. He had accepted his fate the moment he had asked Daehwi if he wished to live longer.

He had brought it upon himself, and he can only blame himself. He can never blame Daehwi.

From the corner of his eye, Jinyoung sees Minhyun raise his hand up and set the timeframe moving again. The truck lurches forward, and Daehwi fades before the driver could hit him, but not before Jinyoung catches him look his way.

He wishes it was all in his head, just a figment of his sad imagination, when he hears Daehwi call for his name. That’s all Jinyoung could remember before everything turned black.

_I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you this time._

 

❊

 

Jinyoung dreams every time he falls asleep.

He dreams of walking on the moon, or catching a comet, or often times, holding Daehwi’s hand as he watches the red glow of the sunset fade into the inky blue night sky filled with stars that resembled how Daehwi’s eyes would glimmer under the moonlight.

This time, he dreams of heaven.

But in this dream, heaven is a dark, isolated place. This heaven is cold and suffocating and seemingly endless. Jinyoung paces forward, but the darkness seem to expand more and more with every step, like it was about to swallow him alive if he doesn't escape soon. Heaven, then, looked like a maze with no end, a prison cell with no doors, and Jinyoung wanted nothing more than to be set free."

 _"Census number, five, one, zero._ Bae Jinyoung of the House of Death," he hears someone say from behind him in a deep, thunderous voice.

Jinyoung turns around and sees a gigantic podium appear in the middle of the void he was in, illuminated by a light somewhere above him. A bright flash follows, and then six average-size lecterns come into sight, surrounding the one in the middle. He hears footsteps somewhere in the shadows behind the podium, but it doesn't take long for an image of a figure to come along with the sounds of heavy feet approaching him.

"Head Reaper for a millenium. A-class soul reaper for five hundred years. Archangel for three hundred years," the booming voice continues to narrate as each of the six seraphs appear before him in such a dominating and daunting aura that Jinyoung feels his hands go clammy and his legs turn to jelly. "Accused of high treason against the Order of the Heavens. Crimes include withdrawal of a scheduled soul from the timetable, extending a mortal soul's life, and using of powers for selfish purposes."

Jinyoung doesn't even have to think twice. This was his trial.

The six seraphs make their way in each of their lecterns. With the sole light that illuminates them from above and the shadows that cast their faces, they look more menacing than angelic. Jinyoung watches as Daniel and Seongwoo snicker at him, playful eyes filled with mirth. Sungwoon looks over at him with disinterest, like he'd much rather be anywhere else but here. Jaehwan looks neutral, lips curled up in a small smile. Jisung gives him an apologetic look, like it was his fault Jinyoung ended up here, and then there was Minhyun.

Minhyun, who Jinyoung was the closest to, the one who had raised him and taught him everything he knew, looks everywhere else but at him. Jinyoung knows he had disappointed, and he knows Minhyun wasn't gonna save him from the fate that awaits him after this. With a deep breath, he lifts his head up and eyes the council with zeal, with readiness.

He was ready.

"By the verdict of the Council of Seraphs, Heaven declares you, Bae Jinyoung, guilty of the accusations associated with you," the thunderous voice announces, the light above them flashing like lightning. Jinyoung closes his eyes as he waits for his punishment. "For your act of betrayal against Heaven, you are sentenced eternal banishment. You are to never enter the gates of Heaven for all of eternity. You are to be stripped of your powers, and of your immortality. Bae Jinyoung, you will live as a mortal for a hundred days, and after your time on the human realm is up—"

"You will cease to exist," Minhyun continues, finally glancing down on him. His face remains as passive as he remembers it, but he sees how his eyes soften for a moment before they turn back to stone cold. Jinyoung gives him a sad smile. "You will walk alone in this void for as long as time exists."

Jinyoung hears thunder after, the sky roaring as the light flickers. He turns to the council of Seraphs and see them slowly fade out. A zap of lightning hits him, and Jinyoung falls on his knees because of the impact, the blow burning his skin like the flames that comes out of Cerberus' mouth, but all he could think of at that moment was Daehwi.

_Where is Daehwi now?_

The burning spreads from his arm to his chest until he feels like he was being suffocated, being engulfed in the flames that seemed all too much like Hell.

 

Then he wakes up.

 

 

❊

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS HASN'T BEEN PROOFREAD YET BUT ENJOY!

❊

 

" _Holy shit_ , Youngmin hyung. What if he's dead?"

Jinyoung squints, trying to adjust his eyes to the blinding light that greeted him. He only realizes a second later that two figures were hovering over him, but his eyes couldn't bear to make out who they were just yet, only seeing blurry images of shades of brown and what appears to be a shock of blood red. The scent of sea breeze and mortality invades his senses, and he knows this was definitely out of the norm.

Angels can't smell, and Jinyoung can't recall a memory of being near the sea to be able to tell how the shore smells like.

"I'm sure he's not Woojin," Jinyoung hears a different voice this time, a lot calmer than the first one. His vision finally clears, and he sees a mop of auburn hair and a gentle smile casted down on him. "See? I told you he lives."

"Oh fuck!" Jinyoung hears the other say in startlement, grains of sand getting on to him as the boy shifts backwards in shock, bright red hair that seems to draw in attention since Jinyoung can't find it in himself to look away. "You're alive! Thank goodness, funeral shit is expensive and I'm honestly really broke right now so I can't buy you a pretty casket, dude."

All Jinyoung could do was nod, not really understanding what the hell was going on. He slowly sits up, head still throbbing as he scans the vicinity he was in. He was definitely near the sea, the waves splashing against the rocks on the shore a few meters away from where they were. Not too far away, Jinyoung spots what appears to be a small village, houses made of stone and cottages made out of wood and palm leaves spread throughout the area. He turns his gaze back towards the two boys who were looking at him expectantly.

Jinyoung blinks, "What?"

"For starters, you could give us your name?" the auburn-haired prompts. He points a finger at himself, "My name is Youngmin, and this guy here is Woojin," he pauses as he darts his pointer towards the red-haired boy who was nodding his head.

"Uh...Jinyoung...my name is Jinyoung."

"We found you washed up on shore not too long ago," Woojin adds as he gets up and brushes off the sand on his board shorts. "Man, I honestly thought you were a goner. You looked like you weren't breathing, no matter how much Youngmin hyung tried to convince me earlier that he saw you twitch in your sleep."

"How long was I out for?" Jinyoung couldn't help but ask, massaging his temples that wouldn't stop aching, as if there was somebody hammering a nail onto his skull.

"About thirty minutes...well we're not really sure since we found you thirty minutes ago and you were already knocked out by then," Youngmin answers this time as he gets up from where he had crouched in front of Jinyoung earlier. He offers a hand to help him up, and Jinyoung accepts. "Anyway, if you don't mind us asking, what happened and...where did you come from?"

"I—"

A current sends Jinyoung back kneeling on the sand, wincing as he hears static resonate in his head louder and louder that he could barely hear Woojin and Youngmin call out to him in worry. He grabs onto both sides of his head, the pain getting stronger by the second.

And then he hears it.

The thunderous voice from the sky. The sound of lightning. The verdict of the seraphs. Minhyun's cold voice.

 

And Daehwi, right before he had faded then.

 

_"Jinyoung, I'm sorry."_

 

"Fuck, Youngmin hyung, he's crying!" Jinyoung hears Woojin gasp as the static sound in his head slowly quiet down and he could finally hear the world again. "What do we do now? Oh god, you shouldn't have asked that!"

Jinyoung slowly lifts up a hand to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his own damp face. He knows it wasn't because of the seawater dripping from his hair; it was because of his tears. He had cried. He had feelings.

_"For your act of betrayal against Heaven, you are sentenced eternal banishment. You are to never enter the gates of Heaven for all of eternity. You are to be stripped of your powers, and of your immortality. Bae Jinyoung, you will live as a mortal for a hundred days,"_  Jinyoung remembers his trial as he rests his palm by his chest, waiting until he feels a throb. And another. A staccatto of beats that he could hear clearly if he listened hard enough.

He was now someone with a beating heart. He was now human.

"Jinyoung, are you okay?" he hears Youngmin's worried voice, a hand patting him by the shoulder.

Jinyoung turns to him. He doesn't know. He doesn't know if he's okay, if any of this is okay. He would much rather go walk that abyss of nothingness right at this very moment, than walk this Earth lost and confused for the next hundred days.

He'd be lying if he said he had never daydreamed about his what-if's of being human. He had, far too many times now that he had lost count. He dreams of being able to grow up and play like the children he sees at the park, running around play tag. He dreams of making friends, ones who you go to karaoke with on weekends and do all sorts of reckless stuff together. He dreams of finding love, one who he'll be able to take in front of the altar and say his vows he promises to keep 'til death.

But those were dreams he had pictured doing with Daehwi. Those daydreams all had Daehwi in them. In this reality, there was no Daehwi beside him to do all those stuff together with.

"I think we should head inside first," Youngmin announces. "Let's get you warmed up first. You look like you've been through a lot," he turns to Woojin. "Woojin, go pick up Donghyun. I bet he went to visit the flower shop. Tell him we'll need an extra serving tonight."

Jinyoung watches as Woojin walks towards the bike parked by a coconut tree that he had only noticed now and pedals off. Youngmin helps him get up and guides him inside a small cabin not too far away.

 

 

❊

 

The cabin is small, just a simple wooden house big enough for a family of four. Youngmin helps him sit down on the couch, with Jinyoung immediately plopping down at the sight of it. His head is still aching, but the pain has subsided a bit.

“Are you feeling a bit better now? You still look really pale,” Youngmin asks worriedly. “I’ll go get you a glass of water and something to eat. You look like you haven’t eaten the whole day.”

Jinyoung just nods as Youngmin gets up and heads towards the kitchen. His eyes scan the room. The interior was simple, not too over the top and not to boring either. The wooden walls were decorated with watercolor paintings framed and hung, and looked like they weren’t brought from the store but hand-drawn themselves. One painting near the entrance to the kitchen catches his attention.

It was minimalistic. There were more white than there were any other color, but the point, the main character of the artwork, was what had him stop in his tracks. It was an angel. A faceless angel with golden brown hair and silver markings all around his arms that appear to be stems with thorns, a full-bloomed rose right at the angel’s forehand. His wings look metallic, feathers looking like daggers, and his head was wrapped in a vine crown.

Kind of like his own crown, kind of like his own wings and kind of like how he used to look like before he was sent into exile. Jinyoung finds his hands shaking.

“Ah, my friend painted that,” he hears Youngmin say as he sees him come back with a tray of food and a fresh set of clothes. “Really good, huh? I told him to go to art school but he doesn’t want to because it’s expensive. I still find it a pity.”

“Where…did your friend get the idea for this?”

Youngmin sets down the tray, and looks up the ceiling, trying to recall. “Hm, I think this was when he said he had a weird dream. Then he just went scavenging for his brushes and painted this.”

Jinyoung looks at the painting again. It accurately pictured out what an angel looked like that it seemed too much to be a coincidence, but he tries to let the thought slide. Humans can’t see angels. They wouldn’t know. So Jinyoung turns his head instead at the food Youngmin had brought and hears his stomach rumble. Youngmin laughs.

“I heated this up for you so you wouldn’t have an upset stomach. There’s also soup in the kitchen, I can get you some if you want,” Youngmin offers as he hands him the clothes, a simple white shirt and a pair of washed out jeans, “You can change into this so you won’t catch a cold. The bathroom is two doors by the left side.”

Jinyoung nods in response as he heads towards where Youngmin had directed.

It feels off. Everything still feels off. Being around humans, with them _actually_ seeing him around them, talking to them that doesn’t involve collecting their souls, and feeling.

Jinyoung feels scared, just as he feels amazed. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, the tingling sensation that courses through him when he sees how human-like he looks now, how he blends perfectly well with the mortal crowd.

But what was gonna happen now? He knows he can’t stay here with Youngmin and Woojin. He can’t just burden them like that, especially when he’s nothing more to them but a stranger who passed out by the seashore. He also can’t possibly stay with them because if he did, then there will be attachments.

He can’t afford to have attachments when he’s gonna leave them anyway after a hundred days.

Jinyoung comes out of the bathroom in dry clothes and in time to see Woojin munching on cookies with a new figure beside him gawking at him with his mouth half-open. He takes cautious steps towards them.

“Oh, you’re done,” he hears Youngmin say. “Come here and eat. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

Jinyoung sits beside Youngmin, taking one of the sandwiches he had prepared earlier but not before glancing up at Woojin and the other boy beside him. The brunette grins at him.

“Hyung, if you keep smiling at him like that, he’s definitely gonna think you’re a creep,” Woojin tells him off, nose scrunching.

The brunette laughs, “My bad, he just looks really cute. I haven’t seen a face as small as his before,” he turns to meet Jinyoung in the eye. “My name is Donghyun. You’re Jinyoung, right? My friends here say they found you by the beach. What happened?”

Jinyoung feels all three pairs of eyes at him. He should’ve expected this. Of course, it was in the human nature to wonder why the hell is there a random boy washed up on shore at what seems to be four in the afternoon.

He has never lied, apart from everything that had to do with Lee Daehwi. Jinyoung has never lied, so he doesn’t know what to respond with. He couldn’t just say “hey, so I’m an angel and I was sent here because I was exiled in heaven after I broke the law when I kinda fell in love.” They weren’t gonna believe that so he just let out what he could come up with first.

“I don’t remember.”

“Huh?” Woojin blinks. “What do you mean you don’t remember? Oh my god, did you perhaps lose your memories? Do you not remember where you came from and who you are apart from your name?”

Jinyoung remembers clearly where he came from and who he is and _was_ , but he finds himself nodding as Woojin and Donghyun gasp audibly. Youngmin casts him a look of what Jinyoung assumes was both concern and pity. He feels his stomach churn as he bites into the sandwich he’s holding.

“Could you have possibly been one of the survivors from the shipwreck a few days ago?” Donghyun questions, fingers drumming against the wooden tabletop. “A huge storm had happened two days ago and this one cruise ship got caught up in the eye of it. There are passengers who are still missing. Could you have been one of them?”

“You really think he’s one of them?” Jinyoung hears someone say behind him and he feels his entire world freeze. His hands grip into his half-eaten sandwich tightly, afraid that if he ever loosens his hold it’d fall right along with his heart. “I told you, those missing are dead by now. That part of the water has high salinity and is too deep for anyone to swim in. The possibility of surviving is below one percent.”

He hears footsteps coming nearer as Jinyoung drops his head lower and lower. In his peripheral, he sees a small figure plopped down on the couch across from where he sat, his gaze burning holes at him. Jinyoung feels his throat go dry.

_No._

“Well here’s your below one percent, Daehwi,” Woojin answers back in a teasing tone. “Alive and breathing. Right, Jinyoung?”

He doesn’t answer. He lets his gaze remain on the wooden floor of the cabin, biting down on his lips hard until he tastes lead. It couldn’t possibly be him. It could simply just be a common name. The resemblance of the voice can simply just be a coincidence. It couldn’t possibly be him.

Woojin taps him in the shoulder, and Jinyoung jolts up in surprise—the first thing his eyes catch is the sight of the one boy that had made him feel so much before he was even programmed to feel. The one boy who could make him hesitate, and feel a strong sense of protectiveness. The one boy who could pull his heartstrings and make his supposedly non-beating heart beat in his ears like drums on a parade.

“ _Daehwi_ …” Jinyoung barely chokes out, eyes wide in alarm, and in relief.

He was here. He was okay. He’s still living, and he still looks like the Daehwi Jinyoung remembers perfectly well. Same fairy-like face, same pair of uneven eyes that seem to hold the cosmos, and the same aura, the same _feel_ that Jinyoung would easily recognize in a heartbeat.

Daehwi was here, and he’s finally looking at Jinyoung in the eye.

Daehwi crosses his arms and stares at him pointedly. “I don’t believe him. For all we know, he could be a burglar or something. You guys can’t easily trust him just because he looks pitiful. He needs to go,” he says coldly.

“Don’t be rude. He’s our guest,” Youngmin reprimands. He turns to Jinyoung and pats him in the back. “I’m sorry. He’s just not really good with new people. Don’t mind him. You can stay here until you feel better.”

“I can’t believe you,” Daehwi scoffs. “You’re really just gonna let a stranger stay _here_? A complete, utter stranger? Am I the only one trying to be reasonable here?”

“Well, we can’t just let him die outside now, can we? This dude still looks as lost as when we had first found him,” Woojin butts in.

“He can stay here for now, until he gets better. Let’s settle on that,” Donghyun concludes.

“No,” Jinyoung whispers as he shakes his head. He turns to Daehwi, who has an eyebrow raised at him, but he catches his eyes soften at him for a moment. Jinyoung smiles a little. “He’s right. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. So I really can’t blame you if you can’t trust me. I should go—“

He immediately falls right back on the couch right the moment he tried to stand up, hissing as the pain from earlier comes in again like someone had been drilling on his head. He winces, the pain seemingly doubled this time as his vision starts to blur and all his mind could register was Youngmin and the rest calling out to him.

_Exile. Stripped off immortality. A hundred mortal days._

Everything then goes black just right after Jinyoung hears Daehwi call his name.

 

❊

 

Jinyoung briefly dreams of the shore Youngmin and Woojin had found him washed off. He dreams of a sunset in hues of red and orange and yellow spreading across the horizon like a canvas. He dreams of a hand locked with his, and a head resting on his shoulder. He dreams that time is frozen in that moment forever.

 

❊

 

“I thought you said you wanted him to leave,” Jinyoung faintly hears, his eyes still closed but his senses now awake.  He feels a hand brush past his forehead and a damp cloth right after.

“I’m not _that_ cruel. I don’t wanna see him like this on the streets either,” Jinyoung recognizes Daehwi’s voice in an instant, eyes slowly opening to the blurry image of him just right above him. Daehwi sees him shift in startlement, immediately pushing him back down by the forehead when Jinyoung tried to get up from where he lied on Daehwi’s lap.

“Don’t move too much if you don’t want to strain your body.”

Daehwi presses the damp cloth back on Jinyoung’s forehead, the latter visibly squirming whenever Daehwi’s skin makes contact with his. Jinyoung feels heat gush over his body and all towards his face, burning him, but it was a comfortable kind of warmth. Jinyoung’s not sure if it’s still because of the fever he was sure he was suffering in now, but he’d like to think it’s only because of that.

Jinyoung’s eyes adjust to the small light bulb that illuminates the room, gaze locked on Daehwi who was busy concentrating on cooling his head.

“You know with you two like that, and if I didn’t know you personally, I would’ve thought you two were dating,” Woojin says as he sips on his canned drink. Daehwi chokes on air and immediately throws the cloth right at Woojin’s face, the latter immediately yelling in exasperation.

Jinyoung gets up slowly then, a hand holding his head as if he were trying to keep his balance steady. This time, Daehwi doesn’t stop him. His eyes gaze over the room he was in. Even with his throbbing head, he could still tell he was no longer in the living room.

He only notices then that he was sitting down on a soft mattress, the bed filled with plushies of random cartoon characters. The wooden walls are filled with paintings, some framed and some from torn sketchpad paper just pinned down. The paintings all seem abstract. Jinyoung couldn’t see anything other than random splashes of watercolor in odd shapes.

“This is my room,” he hears Daehwi say to which he immediately turns to. He wasn’t looking at Jinyoung, eyes fixed on something on his right or more like anywhere else that aren’t Jinyoung’s eyes. Daehwi purses his lips. “It’s already nine in the evening. You passed out for four hours.”

“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” Jinyoung immediately responds. He turns to Woojin to apologize too but the redhead just waves him off.

“Nah, I didn’t even do anything the whole four hours. Trust me, Daehwi did everything,” Woojin winks. “From watching over you to trying to cool down your fever. He did it all.”

“This is where you shut up, okay, Park Woojin,” Daehwi scoffs. He now meets Jinyoung’s gaze, who was startled when he turned to him too fast. “Do you really not remember who you are? Do you really not have a place to go?”

“Yes,” Jinyoung says, barely audible. It’s not like he was completely lying. He really didn’t have anywhere else to go. He doesn’t have enough knowledge of the human realm to survive wandering on his own for the next one hundred days.

“Then stay,” Daehwi whispers.

Jinyoung would say yes. Jinyoung wants to say yes, but he can’t. _Attachments. Attachments are dangerous. He’s the reason you ended up here. You can’t afford to make the same mistake again._

“I can—“

“Until we’ll find someone who recognizes you anyway…just as long as you don’t do something fishy or I won’t hesitate to call the cops!” Daehwi continues, moving his hands animatedly.

“I don’t want to be a bother—“

“You’re not a bother, Jinyoungie!” Donghyun suddenly yells by the door, striding towards them and squeezes himself on the space next to Jinyoung. “We could use a new face here to be honest. I’ve been living with these bums for seven years now. It’s getting boring here.”

“I’ll try not to be offended,” Youngmin comments, leaning on the doorframe.

“You don’t even know me…” Jinyoung tries.

“Yeah,” Donghyun shrugs. “But I don’t know, it just feels right to welcome you here in our humble home. I trust you enough for some reason, even when all we really know is your name.”

_Attachments. Don’t._

“If you really don’t want to, then we won’t force you, okay?” Daehwi suddenly pipes in. Jinyoung turns to him, the blond visibly tensing up at the sudden eye contact.

When the seraphs had given him their verdict, he wasn’t expecting this. He was expecting total isolation. Jinyoung was expecting a whole hundred days of sadness and depression, and then a whole eternity of the same thing but in a darker place next time.

But here was Daehwi, quite possibly the first blessing he has ever had in his two-millenium immortality.

Yet maybe he should’ve seen this coming. Fate is in Heaven’s side. Meeting Daehwi in the human realm was not a mere coincidence. Here was Daehwi alright. Daehwi, who could now see him, who could now talk to him without having to be afraid of him. Daehwi who was a mere arms reach away, who he could now hold and touch if he just leaned in. The seraphs in heaven were letting him experience human life, _human love_.

They want Jinyoung to love and cherish every second of his mortal life, so when his time is up, he’ll long and yearn back for those moments. He’d live in agony, of memories that haunt his brain over and over, for all of eternity.

Heaven used Lee Daehwi as his punishment disguised as a blessing.

Jinyoung’s eyes soften, “I’ll stay if you want me to.”

Heat starts to color Daehwi’s cheeks. “What? I’m _not_ forcing you to stay if that’s what you’re thinking, okay? You’re more than welcome to leave—“

“I’ll stay if it’s okay with you,” Jinyoung smiles.

So what if he were to long for all these later on? So what if he’s gonna live in nostalgia that’ll eat him alive for all of eternity? He wants to experience what happiness is like. He wants to be happy.

Jinyoung wants to be happy with Daehwi, even when he knows that happiness will end sooner or later.

“It’s…okay,” Daehwi replies softly. “I’m okay with you staying.”

Jinyoung feels something stir inside him, and something warm spreading right across his chest. It’s a soft and free feeling, like lying on the clouds and letting it take you wherever.

“Okay!” Donghyun cheers, standing up from where he sat at the edge of Daehwi’s bed. “Now that that’s settled, all that’s left is room allocation. We don’t have an extra mattress so you’re gonna have to share a bed with your roommate too. Daehwi, share your room with Jinyoung.”

“What?” Daehwi shoots back immediately, eyes wide. Jinyoung chokes on air, coughing behind his right forehand.

“Well, Jinyoung can’t possibly sleep in my shared room with Youngmin. There’s not even enough space there to breathe,” Donghyun shrugs. “Yours is the only option.”

“What do you mean mine is the only option? Does Woojin not exist?”

“Wow, so you finally acknowledge my presence in this household. I suddenly feel special,” Woojin rolls his eyes. “As much as I’m cool with Jinyoung, you know he can’t stay in my room. Hyungseob visits a lot, remember?”

“Then I’m moving in your room. Jinyoung can stay in mine. Hyungseob and I are friends anyway,” Daehwi presses.

“You really wanna watch Woojin and Hyungseob eat each other’s faces?” Donghyun asks, raising an eyebrow, to which Woojin immediately shouts back with a “Hyung, what the fuck?”, face all red as Daehwi’s own scrunches in disgust.

“I’m sleeping in the living room then.”

“You don’t like sleeping in the living room.”

“I can sleep there,” Jinyoung butts in, slightly raising an arm. “If Daehwi’s uncomfortable with sharing his room with me…I can just sleep there. I can sleep anywhere, really.”

“No!” Daehwi immediately dismisses the idea, surprising not only Jinyoung but the rest of the people in the room too. He clears his throat, ears burning red, “I mean, no. You can’t sleep out there in the cold when you’re still sick.”

Sighing, he stands up and grabs both Woojin and Donghyun by the arm, leading them out the door with Youngmin following right after when he sees them out the room. “Alright fine, I’ll share the room with him.”

“Yes, I know you were a boy with a kind soul, Lee Dae—“ Daehwi immediately closes the door before Donghyun could even finish. He turns to Jinyoung who was busy fidgeting with the hem of the shirt Youngmin had lent him earlier.

“Sorry if my friends are a mess,” Daehwi bites the inside of his cheek.

“Uh, it’s okay. I could really just sleep outside. It’s no problem, really,” Jinyoung assures him, about to stand up but Daehwi pushes him back down.

“No one’s sleeping outside. You’re sleeping here, that’s final,” Daehwi commands, and Jinyoung can’t help but chuckle to himself at how he had just pouted after saying that. Daehwi opens his closet and grabs a white shirt and a pair of pajama pants. “Change into this. I guess we’ll have to go buy you clothes tomorrow too.”

“If I’m being a burden to you—“

“Oh my god, stop it okay. You’re not a burden,” Daehwi says exasperatedly. “You’re not a burden,” he repeats this time in a softer tone. “Look, you must’ve thought I hated you because of what I said earlier but let me just say, it was normal human reaction to be wary of strangers.”

Jinyoung thinks back to the times when he was still Death, when he had come to take away Daehwi’s soul time after time after time. Was Daehwi scared of him too back then? “Are you still scared now?”

“I’m not scared,” Daehwi answers. “I wasn’t scared. Wary, but not scared.”

Daehwi means now, but Jinyoung would like to think that goes the same for all his past selves that had met him before too. That Daehwi, not once, felt fear whenever he’s around him.

“Why aren’t you? Like you said, you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me—”

“But what if I do?” Daehwi shoots back. “What if, in a way, I do know you?”

Jinyoung stares at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Daehwi heads towards the desk across his bed, rummaging through the drawers until he finds an old sketchpad. He flips through the pages in haste, stopping short when he finally finds what he was looking for. Jinyoung watches Daehwi press his lips together, eyes wide as he slowly turns the sketchpad for Jinyoung to see.

Jinyoung’s grip on his shirt tightens.

“This is gonna sound really weird and creepy, but I’ve seen you before…in my dreams,” Daehwi says, his voice growing smaller because he, himself, has no idea what he’s even saying now. “See? I always draw my dreams in case I forget them, but in my dreams, you have wings. Silver feathers that look like knives,” he continues, pointing at his sketch.

It was a rough sketch, unruly lines of black ink all over the place, but it looks like it had been drawn from memory. A memory of Jinyoung sitting across from the artist. A memory of Jinyoung sitting across Daehwi inside the House of Death.

Jinyoung continues to stare at Daehwi’s sketch, eyes still wide in confusion. He doesn’t have answers to any of this, to any of the questions raising in his head. Why did Daehwi dream of him? And of him being an angel of death on top of that when he’s never really seen what he had looked like before. Daehwi shouldn’t even have any memories of the House of Death. No mortal has memories of their previous lives. Jinyoung feels his head hurt even more.

“I’m gonna go change,” he excuses himself, leaving Daehwi’s room. It’s better to leave that conversation behind. It’s better to not try to look for the answers to the questions that’ll only remain unanswered. Only the ones above know why all of this was happening. Jinyoung has lost his authority, as well as that knowledge. All he could do know was wait for whatever fate has in stored for them. If fate gives them those answers.

After he finishes washing up, Jinyoung closes the door of the bathroom and finds Youngmin by the breakfast counter, a mug in hand. The auburn-haired smiles at him and motions for Jinyoung to join him. He approaches him, towel in hand as he dries up his hair.

“Are you feeling better now?” Youngmin asks.

“Yeah, my head doesn’t hurt as much as it did earlier,” Jinyoung nods. “Thank you for the help, and sorry to have troubled you a lot. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you guys—“

“It’s okay, Jinyoung. Don’t worry,” Youngmin chuckles. “Me and the gang would gladly extend our help to anyone in need. Even Daehwi, no matter how sharp that boy’s tongue is. He’s a good kid.”

Jinyoung finds himself nodding back. He knows how beautiful Daehwi’s heart is. That was one of the things that remained constant in all the universes he had been reincarnated into, one of the things that never changed. Daehwi’s soul was pure, not even a trace of anything that could have it tainted. It was one of the things that had drawn Jinyoung to him in the first place.

“Donghyun and I will check up on the missing list at the station tomorrow,” Youngmin says after he sips on his mug, setting it down on the counter. “If there are no missing file reports on you, would you like to stay here then? Just until you get your memories back.”

“Is it really okay?” Jinyoung asks, eyebrows furrowed. “Aren’t you suspicious of me?”

Youngmin laughs, “Trust me, you don’t look the slightest bit suspicious. You look lost all the time, Jinyoungie. So, it’s really okay. You need to stop asking that. Everyone’s cool with you staying,” he turns to his right, “See? Even our little Daehwi  here is eager for you to return to his room.”

Jinyoung turns to where Youngmin is looking at and sees Daehwi standing by his room’s doorframe, the faint light of the moon from the window the only thing illuminating him but Jinyoung has never seen anything and anyone more beautiful. He notes how the tips of Daehwi’s ears had gone red.

“I was just wondering what was taking him so long,” Daehwi reasons. “For all I know he could’ve fainted in the shower or something.”

“Were you worried? You seemed to be earlier when Jinyoung was still knocked out unconscious,” Youngmin continues to tease.

“I’m not…worried. Just hurry up before I lock the door,” Daehwi says through gritted teeth as he slams his bedroom door shut.

Youngmin laughs, “Well, I hope you two get along. Daehwi won’t admit it, but I think he saw something in you that piqued his interest. Your ages don’t seem that far apart so I hope you two become close.”

Jinyoung just smiles as he walks back to Daehwi’s room. The lights have been turned off, only the faint moonlight lightening up the small room and letting him see Daehwi already lying on his bed with his back turned on him.

Everything feels like a dream. For other angels, being stripped off of immortality would’ve been their biggest nightmare, but this is a dream Jinyoung doesn’t ever wanna wake up from. Daehwi was now just an arm’s reach away. No more invisible walls that divided heaven and earth, angel and mortal. In here, they were the same. In here, they’re both under the same sky, breathing the same air and existing in the same universe. No more laws and principles of heaven and earth to worry about. In here, he and Daehwi were free, and that’s all that matters.

Even when he knows this dream will end someday soon.

“Are you just gonna stand there for the rest of the night?” Jinyoung hears Daehwi ask, his back still facing him. He takes careful steps and sits down on his side of the bed. Daehwi shifts and turns to face him, “Just get in bed already. I can’t sleep knowing you’re still wide awake.”

“I’m sorry—“ Jinyoung’s apology gets cut off when Daehwi pulls him by the arm and he falls into the mattress. Daehwi pushes him to Jinyoung’s side of the bed and tucks him in with a comforter, before settling in his spot earlier. The close proximity of Daehwi’s face to his was enough to warm Jinyoung up, his toes curling under the soft fabric of the comforter.

Daehwi stares at him in the eye, “Dude, you need to stop apologizing for everything.”

“I’m sorry—“

“What did I just say?” Daehwi pouts.

Jinyoung smiles, “Okay, I’ll stop.” He watches as Daehwi closes his eyes, but Jinyoung can tell he was still awake. “Youngmin and Donghyun will check on the station tomorrow if anyone filed a missing report on me,” Jinyoung finds himself suddenly saying.

Daehwi hums in response, sinking comfortably into the hem of his sheets. “I know.”

“What if there aren’t any?” Jinyoung continues as he stares up the ceiling, glow-in-the-dark stars adorning it as they glimmer subtly like fireflies above their heads.

“Then there aren’t any.”

“Will you still trust me?” Jinyoung asks, this time turning to face him. Daehwi is already looking at him, eyes softening.

“I don’t have doubts for now,” Daehwi smiles before he closes his eyes. “Trust takes time, but I want to. I want to trust you…and I hope you won’t break that.”

 

❊

 

“Woojin, stop taking pictures of them and help me load all these flower baskets in the truck,” is what Jinyoung hears first when he wakes up, eyes adjusting to the bright morning light. He tries to sit up, but feels something heavy on his stomach that’s stopping him from doing so. Jinyoung turns to see Daehwi wrapping an arm around his waist, face nuzzling on his shoulder and still sleeping soundly.

Jinyoung smiles as he plays with the strands of Daehwi’s hair sticking in all sorts of directions, “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Daehwi snuggles his face even more on Jinyoung’s chest, eyes still closed. “Five more minutes.”

It’s been almost a month since he was exiled on earth, and during that duration, Jinyoung has gotten used to the way humans live and survive their day-to-day basis. The adjustment phase was difficult, but Jinyoung was able to manage. Now, he has gotten used to coming in and out of the small wooden house by the beach, the saltwater air that kisses him on the cheek every morning and every night, and the comfort of Daehwi’s presence beside him almost every minute of the day.

The days he had spent on the human realm had bridged them closer, with Daehwi always being there in case Jinyoung needed any help. Small talk on the dinner table soon turned to playful banters and then into random late night talks regarding just about anything while they both lie their heads on the comforts of their pillows and before sleep took over them.

This was more than Jinyoung could ever ask for.

“If I don’t wake you up now, you won’t wake up for the next hour, knowing you,” Jinyoung shoots back, pushing Daehwi’s forehead away from his shoulder with his index, the boy squinting at him with his half-asleep eyes.

“Jinyoungie-hyung!” Daehwi whines as he suddenly tackles Jinyoung in a hug when he tried to get up, the sheets of their shared bed now disarrayed. “Just five more minutes, I promise! Nothing more.”

Jinyoung is frozen stiff, as Daehwi dozes back off, arms around his waist and head on Jinyoung’s chest that he’s afraid Daehwi could hear just how fast his heart was beating at that moment. He looks down on the sight of Daehwi fast asleep on him, shoulders slightly rising from his steady breathing.

Daehwi always looks so peaceful when he’s asleep that Jinyoung can’t help but smile at the sight.

The moment, however, is broken when they both hear the shutter of a camera and Daehwi immediately scrambles off of Jinyoung, hitting the latter’s nose in the process. Woojin clutches his stomach, laughing.

“Park Woojin, I am gonna _burn_ you,” Daehwi threatens, throwing a pillow square on Woojin’s face.

Jinyoung rubs his sore nose as Daehwi runs after Woojin who was holding his phone tightly like his life had depended on it. Youngmin comes into the room with a basket full of peonies and dandelions.

“Hey, can I ask you and Daehwi to watch over the flower shop for today? Donghyun and I need to head to my grandmother’s place today, and Woojin has dance practice in his university this afternoon.”

“Sure,” Jinyoung shrugs. “Daehwi has shown me how to handle the register once. We’ll be able to manage, don’t worry.”

“Knew I could count on you. Thanks Jinyoung!” Youngmin was about to leave, but stops shortly. “And oh, you and Daehwi cuddling looked very cute.”

Jinyoung feels his face burn all the way up to the tips of his ears as he scurries of their shared bed and tries to find a fresh set of clothes to wear for the day. His heart is still drumming loudly in his ears, but he can’t stop the corners of his lips from going up.

“Youngmin hyung says we’re watching over the shop today,” he hears Daehwi say behind him, probably done chasing after Woojin and threatening him to delete the photo. Jinyoung continues to rummage through their shared closet as Daehwi sits on top of the desk beside it. “You still remember what I taught you the other day, right?”

“Of course,” Jinyoung nods. “My memory’s not _that_ bad. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. Just making sure…and also,” the pause makes Jinyoung turn his head towards him. Daehwi grins, “Why was your heart beating really loudly earlier? Do I make you nervous, hyung?”

“No. I’m gonna go take a bath now,” Jinyoung closes the closet door hard, and heads out of the room in long strides, face heating up too much he feels like he’s sweating. He hears Daehwi’s cute laughter right before he closes the door.

“I was just kidding, hyung! I know you only see me as a cute dongsaeng!”

Jinyoung wants to tell him he sees him more than just that.

 

❊

 

During his stay with the four boys, Jinyoung has learned a lot about Earth and the people he’s with. He learns that the four of them had been together since they were in elementary school. Woojin and Daehwi were orphans, and the school Donghyun and Youngmin goes to also handles the orphanage they’re in. The four decided to move in together when Youngmin’s parents bought him the house when he moved out for university. The three decided to tag along and they’ve been inseparable since.

Now, Woojin is in university, while Youngmin has a job in the city while Donghyun handles a small flower shop in the town square. Daehwi has stopped going to school and does art for commissions, but often times goes to Donghyun’s shop to help out.

Jinyoung likes to watch Daehwi paint. He likes the way Daehwi’s eyes seem to light up everytime the brush strokes the canvas, the way his lips curl up into a bright smile when he’s proud of his work despite the paint smudges on his overalls and on the bridge of his nose.

Jinyoung watches behind the counter as Daehwi finishes up painting what seems to be a bouquet of gardenias and lilacs. Today’s a slow day inside the flower shop so he has all the time in the world to just look at him fondly as Daehwi tries to color the petals in the perfect shade.

He tries not to think too much about how the flowers remind him of the times Daehwi would get engulfed in a ball of light as he goes into his next life.

“Looks beautiful,” Jinyoung muses, eyes still locked on Daehwi and his paint-smudged face. Daehwi turns to him with a wide grin.

“Thanks,” he lifts up the canvas and heads towards where Jinyoung stood, almost tripping in his hurry to get to him. “I was worried you might not like it.”

“But I like all of your paintings,” Jinyoung tells him honestly. “You seem to have a magical touch in you. Everything you paint are always so beautiful.”

“You really think they’re beautiful?” Daehwi asks, eyes not leaving his painting.

“Of course,” comes Jinyoung’s answer in a heartbeat.

“Then do you think _I’m_ beautiful?” Daehwi asks with a cat-like grin. Jinyoung knows he’s just joking, but he can’t help but return it with a soft smile.

“You are beautiful.”

He watches as a pink tint makes its way in both of Daehwi’s cheeks. “Uh…uh, that was a joke, okay. Thank you, though…and this is for you, by the way. A  present…for your one month stay with us,” Daehwi barely says, his words stumbling.

“Has it really been a month…” Jinyoung’s eyes goes through the delicate details on Daehwi’s painting and smiles. “Thank you, Daehwi.”

“Can you repeat that?” Daehwi suddenly asks.

Jinyoung blinks in confusion, “Thank you?”

“No, silly. My name,” Daehwi pouts. “You don’t call me by my name that much, I noticed. I like hearing you say my name, Jinyoungie-hyung.”

“…Daehwi,” Jinyoung mutters softly. “Daehwi.”

Daehwi grins, as he skips back to where his art tools were, slowly cleaning up, but not before Jinyoung catches him say, “Ah, why does that make me so happy?”

Jinyoung doesn’t know why it makes him happy as well.

The two go back to the house with Daehwi still grinning from ear to ear, and Woojin throwing him a weirded look. Jinyoung tries not to think too much about the way Youngmin and Donghyun exchange knowing glances when they asked him what kind of flowers did Daehwi paint in his present.

 

❊

 

The days pass by faster than Jinyoung had wanted them to, time slipping in between his fingers like grains of sand that he finds himself treasuring every second he could spent with Daehwi.

During his time as a mortal, he finds more reasons to love Daehwi each and every day. Every moment spent with him just makes it hard to let his hand go. Jinyoung still doesn’t fully understand the human concept of love, but one look at Daehwi makes him feel like maybe in a way he does.

He doesn’t understand the human concept of love, but he understands his concept of love for Daehwi.

Daehwi makes him feel like everything is right. His arm on his waist, his hand locked with his, the shared glances, the shared smiles—everything just feels so right, even when Jinyoung knows it’s wrong. It’s wrong because they’re not meant to be. After his hundred day-stay, he’ll disappear and Daehwi won’t remember anything. But when he’s with Daehwi, Jinyoung feels absolute bliss that it scares him sometimes because he doesn’t know if he’s even allowed to feel this much happiness.

It scares him how he can be so happy despite knowing what awaits him in the end.

On Jinyoung’s fortieth stay on earth, Daehwi borrows Youngmin’s pickup truck and takes Jinyoung for a ride by the outskirts of town. He stops by the side of a cliff, Daehwi saying this point had the best of view of the entirety of the seaside village.

Jinyoung’s eyes widen in awe as the village spread underneath him in a multitude of colors. The lights from the houses looking like fireflies. The view itself was magical.

“Isn’t the view great?” he hears Daehwi ask beside him, leaning on the metal railing. The cold evening air sweeps his hair, and Daehwi tries to comb back his fringe with his fingers. Daehwi always looks so breathtakingly beautiful basking under moonlight.

“Yeah,” Jinyoung whispers. “It is.”

“Jinyoungie hyung,” Daehwi suddenly calls. “Do you like me?”

Jinyoung chokes on air.

“I mean as a friend,” Daehwi bursts out laughing. Jinyoung turns to give him a glare. “Do you like being with me? Do you enjoy spending time with me?”

“Of course,” Jinyoung answers. “Is that even a question?”

“Hm,” Daehwi hums as he turns back to look at the village underneath them. The villagers has started their usual routine of sending out sky lanterns, signaling it’s now eight in the evening. The wind carries the lanterns up into the sky until they look like they’re one with the stars in the night sky.

Under the orange glow of the sky lanterns lighting up the inky sky, Daehwi smiles softly, “Sometimes I wonder…what if you never washed up on our shore? What if we never crossed paths? What if I never met you?” he turns to Jinyoung, smile still there. “Would I still be able to feel this kind of happiness?”

Jinyoung doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what to answer.

He thinks of what-if’s too. What if he never met Daehwi in the House of Death? What if he never knew of Daehwi’s existence? What if he never took this risk? What if he obeyed the laws of heaven?

Would he ever feel this kind of happiness?

“Ah, is it a weird question?” Daehwi laughs awkwardly, leaning onto the railing. “I just feel that I’m really happy when I’m with you, hyung. I just wanted you to know that.”

Jinyoung doesn’t know what he’s thinking when he suddenly leans in to kiss Daehwi on the cheek, the latter jumping up in surprise as he puts a hand at where Jinyoung’s lips had touched. Jinyoung feels his face heat up.

“W-what was that for?” Daehwi stutters, cheeks the same shade of red as Jinyoung’s.

“I saw…Donghyun do that to Youngmin the other day,” Jinyoung tries to explain, face still flushed. “I asked him what that was for, and he said as a token of gratitude. I thought it was fine…I’m sorry—“

“It’s fine,” Daehwi immediately assures him. “I was just taken aback.”

“It’s fine?” Jinyoung asks again. Daehwi nods, lips pressed together. “Then…can I kiss you again?”

Jinyoung sees Daehwi’s shoulders tense up and eyes widen, but he nods nonetheless.

“A token of gratitude?” Daehwi asks, as Jinyoung cups up his face.

“A token of gratitude,” Jinyoung repeats as he leans in to kiss Daehwi’s forehead. Daehwi closes his eyes.

“I’m thankful to have met you, hyung.”

“I’m thankful you exist, Daehwi.”

 

❊

 

On the fiftieth day, Daehwi wokes up with a fever and Jinyoung finds himself alone in the house. Youngmin was out for a business trip. Donghyun went home for his mother’s birthday, and Woojin went with his boyfriend Hyungseob in his hometown. Jinyoung had checked the medicine cabinet but only to find it empty.

“Hey, I need to go downtown to pick up medicine,” Jinyoung tells Daehwi as he checks his temperature with his left hand on his forehead and the other on his own. “Will you be fine on your own for just twenty minutes?”

“Jinyoungie hyung,” Daehwi calls out softly, eyes half-opened and face still flushed from the fever. He tugs gently on the hem of Jinyoung’s shirt.

“Yeah?”

Daehwi’s hand moves from the edge of the fabric to the hand Jinyoung had pressed on his forehead. He holds onto it tightly.

“Stay,” he whispers. “Please.”

Jinyoung doesn’t respond. He watches as Daehwi slowly closes his eyes again and lets sleep take over him, before he whispers, “Okay.”

The day ends with Jinyoung falling asleep on a chair beside the bed, head rested on the mattress and hand clasped with Daehwi’s tightly.

Daehwi wakes up, feeling a whole lot better than the day before, and sees Jinyoung sleeping soundly near him. He smiles softly as he leans down to give him a kiss on the cheek. Jinyoung stirs awake, and blinks at him in confusion.

“A token of gratitude,” Daehwi answers before Jinyoung could ask. “And maybe a little something else.”

 

The sixty-fourth day is Christmas eve, and Jinyoung finds himself itching in the knitted sweater gifted to him by Woojin. He paces back and forth as he waits for Daehwi and Donghyun to get ready. Donghyun had thought of spending the evening before twelve by singing Christmas carols at people’s houses as they give them a loaf of fruitcake his mother had baked.

“What’s taking them so long?” Woojin complains.

“Donghyun said he wanted to make Daehwi look like a Christmas fairy,” Youngmin shrugs. “So people won’t ignore us and his mother’s fruitcake.”

Woojin’s forehead scrunches in confusion. “Shouldn’t it be Christmas elf? Since when did Santa have a fairy?”

“Just now,” the three turn their heads in unison the moment they hear Donghyun’s voice. Jinyoung blinks back his startlement  as he watches Donghyun guide an embarassed Daehwi into the living room. “I’m pretty proud of the eye makeup. Really good, huh?”

Daehwi was dressed in a white frilled long sleeve, and red pants, a choker with a bell around his neck and a Santa hat on his head. Donghyun wasn’t kidding when he said he did well on the eye makeup. Daehwi’s eyes look like it’s sparkling, like the Christmas lights adorning the whole village.

“Like what you see, Jinyoungie?” Donghyun teases. Daehwi turns to look at him.

Jinyoung only realizes then that he had been staring a bit longer than necessary, immediately closing his mouth. Youngmin and Woojin snort in laughter.

“I look ridiculous, I know,” Daehwi mutters, ears all red.

Jinyoung immediately shakes his head in protest. “No, you look amazing,” he beams at him. “You look amazing, Daehwi.” Daehwi returns the smile shyly.

They then head out to the first house Donghyun and his fruitcake will victimize, the three walking ahead as Jinyoung and Daehwi lag behind them, snow starting to rain on them slowly.

Jinyoung notices Daehwi rubbing his arms constantly. He pulls on the fabric of his dress shirt, Daehwi jumping up in surprise at the sudden action. “Is there something wrong, hyung?”

“Your shirt is too thin,” Jinyoung comments. “Aren’t you cold?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s my fault for not bringing my coat with me,” Daehwi replies, blowing into his cold hands after rubbing them together. He looks up at the sky, “Ah, it looks so pretty. I didn’t know it’d snow today.”

Jinyoung takes off his parka and puts it on Daehwi from behind. Daehwi turns to him in startlement, but Jinyoung cuts him before he could say anything, “Arms in. Wear this. I don’t want you catching a cold.”

Daehwi obeys, slipping in his arms on the sleeves of Jinyoung’s coat. Jinyoung walks in front of him and buttons it up for him.

“You really didn’t have to,” Daehwi mutters softly. “What about you?”

“This itchy wool sweater is thick enough for me to survive. Don’t worry,” Jinyoung tries to assure him but his teeth clattering gave him away. Daehwi crosses his arms together. “I’ll be fine, okay. Just wear that.”

Jinyoung was about to catch up with Donghyun and the rest when Daehwi suddenly wraps his arms around him from the side. Jinyoung stiffens at the sudden contact.

“Let’s just walk like this then,” Daehwi says, looking up to give him a grin. “That way we can both keep each other warm.”

Jinyoung ruffles his hair and grins back. “Are you even comfortable in this position?”

“I’m comfortable as long as it’s you!” Daehwi answers in a heartbeat.

Jinyoung smiles as he takes out a small box from his pocket. “I should really wait until it’s twelve to give this to you, but I feel like doing it now.”

 “You bought me a present?” Daehwi asks in disbelief.

Jinyoung takes Daehwi’s hand in his and places the box on top of his laid out palm, “Of course. Merry christmas.”

Daehwi opens the small box slowly, the glimmer of the pendant greeting him first. It was a simple chain necklace, a cross with a sapphire embedded on the center hanging on it. Jinyoung takes the necklace and walks behind him.

“Let me,” he whispers to which Daehwi simply nods to.

Jinyoung puts on the necklace for him, Daehwi not really sure if the sudden contact of the cold metal on his nape was what sent him volts down his spine or the proximity of Jinyoung behind him.

“Thank you,” Daehwi whispers. Jinyoung smiles in response. “ I’m sorry I don’t have your present with me at the moment. Do you mind an I.O.U?”

Jinyoung blinks in confusion. “I.O.U?”

Daehwi takes out some kind of plant from his pocket, and it barely registers in Jinyoung’s brain that it was a mistletoe before Daehwi lifts it up and gives him a swift kiss just a small distance away from the corner of Jinyoung’s lips.

Jinyoung stares wide-eyed at Daehwi whose cheeks were just as pink.

Daehwi grins, “Race you to Mrs. Kang’s house!” he says before he starts running to catch up to the rest who were already far ahead.

Jinyoung runs his fingers to where he can still feel the ghost of Daehwi’s lips, the warmth spreading across his chest that had made him numb enough to not feel the cold Christmas air brushing past him.

It’s wishful thinking, but all he could really wish for Christmas was for time to stop in this moment forever.

 

❊

 

“Do you like Daehwi?” is what greets Jinyoung on his seventy-second day. The clock just struck twelve signaling the start of a new year, and Woojin just cornered him behind their house while Youngmin, Donghyun, Daehwi and the guests they had invited to their New Year’s party celebrated by the seashore with firecrackers and sparklers.

“Why do you ask?” Jinyoung says, trying to walk back to where everyone else was but Woojin blocks his way with his arm. Jinyoung sighs, “Let me pass, Woojin.”

“Don’t answer my question with a question as well, Jinyoung,” Woojin shoots back. “Do you like him or not? It’s a yes or no question.”

Jinyoung still has a month left. He still has twenty-eight days left on this earth. Letting out his feelings to anyone wasn’t part of the plan. Attachments as friends were enough luggage for him to carry in the afterlife that awaits him, he doesn’t need more.

But he finds himself smiling at Woojin as he asks softly, “What if I do?”

Woojin smiles back, “Then promise me you’ll take care of him. Daehwi’s really fond of you, and I know you can see that too. Promise me you’ll never hurt him. I love him, that boy is practically my brother by now and I don’t ever wanna see him broken.”

It didn’t really matter if he hurt Daehwi, Jinyoung ‘s head tries to reason. The moment his time was up, he won’t remember him. He won’t remember the pain Jinyoung had brought him. But just the thought of Daehwi crying, the thought of him hurting because of him made his heart ache.

He’d like to leave Daehwi in this world with a smile on his face.

“Stay with him, okay?” Woojin says, hand gripping on Jinyoung’s arm. “Don’t leave him.”

“I won’t,” Jinyoung assures him, even when his heart feels heavy.

_Lies. You’re leaving in a month. Lies._

Woojin gives him one last smile and a pat on the back before he walks back to the party. Jinyoung falls to the ground in a sigh, hoping the sound of fireworks in the sky would distract him from the thoughts of his time limit.

Time wasn’t gonna slow down for him. Time doesn’t wait for anyone. The most he could do was enjoy every moment he has left while he still can.

“What are you doing there?” he hears Daehwi’s voice amidst the loud party music and explosions in the evening sky. Jinyoung looks up and he comes face to face with the one boy who had made him feel so much it was scary as it is relieving.

Daehwi frowns when Jinyoung doesn’t respond, “Hey, are you okay?”

Jinyoung just smiles at him as he pats the space beside him, motioning for him to join him. Daehwi complies immediately, looking at him confused.

“Is something bothering you?” Daehwi asks worriedly. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Jinyoung shakes his head, “It’s nothing but…can I hug you?”

Daehwi blinks in surprise, “Uh, yeah, of course you can but wh—“

Before he could even finish, Jinyoung wraps his arms around him and hugs him tight, face nestled in Daehwi’s shoulder. They stay like that for a while—no words exhange, just the sound of their uneven breathing and the New Year spirit.

Jinyoung grips onto the Daehwi’s shirt tightly, “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“H-huh? Hyung, what’s with the sudden—“

“I’m glad to have come across you in this life, Daehwi,” Jinyoung whispers under his breath.

Daehwi doesn’t understand what’s going on with him, but he returns his hug and smiles, “That goes for me to you too. I’m glad I met you.”

Jinyoung doesn’t want this dream to end.

 

But the hands of the clock keep on ticking.

 

Days suddenly feel a whole lot shorter now as the time of his departure grows nearer. Jinyoung finds himself holding Daehwi’s hand more, hugging him out of the blue and whispering sweet nothings into his ear almost every chance he gets.

Sometimes he’d bring Daehwi flowers, attaching cute little good morning notes in them. Some days, he’d Often times he’d wrap his arm on Daehwi and nuzzle his head on his nape every night when they go to bed, afraid that if he let him go, Jinyoung will lose him sooner.

He doesn’t wanna lose him, but he has no right to be selfish. He has no right to curse Heaven for ending their story too soon. He has no right to ask for more time to be with him. He had brought this upon himself. Daehwi was brought to him as his punishment, nothing more.

And there was no room to be happy when facing a punishment.

“Are you going to tell him today?” Woojin’s question snaps him out of his reverie.

Jinyoung stops inflating the balloon he was holding to look at him. “Huh?”

Donghyun steps down the ladder, beaming in joy. “Oh my god, are you confessing to him today? That’s so sweet! You really timed it on Daehwi’s birthday, you sure are something.”

Jinyoung just gives him a small smile as he continues to inflate the balloons for Daehwi’s surprise party. He and Youngmin had went out of town to check on the art university Daehwi had managed to get an academic scholarship on, so while they were still out, the three of them were in charge of preparing everything.

Jinyoung stands up and heads towards his shared room with Daehwi. Over the course of a hundred days, the walls that were first filled with paintings of abstract dreams on torn sketchpad paper were now replaced with pictures of him and Daehwi together, polaroids of moments they both had cherished.

He looks at the room one last time. Daehwi’s bed that now had two pillows by the headrest. His closet that has been divided for them both, even when they share clothes most of the time. Daehwi’s desk that now have his stuff as well. In a few hours, there won’t be any trace of him left in this room. In a few hours, it will seem like he had never existed.

How ironic everything was, Jinyoung thought. His last day here on earth had to be on  the day the one who had brought him here was born. The supreme beings up in the sky must be enjoying the spectacle beneath them, laughing at his state now like some Sunday sitcom.

He steps out of the room to go check the rest of the house that had sheltered him for the past hundred days one last time. A hundred days ago, he never would’ve thought he’d enjoy the company of humans, but during his stay on earth, Jinyoung discovered friendship, and so, so much more that he knows he’ll surely keep dear in his heart for all of eternity.

Jinyoung fondly watches over as Woojin and Donghyun joke around in the kitchen as they prepare the food. Attachments were dangerous, especially with his situation, but these attachments he had gotten during his stay here were something he’ll never regret nor forget.

It’s ten thirty in the evening when he hears Youngmin park his pick-up truck outside, an hour and a half before his departure. Jinyoung’s head suddenly feels lighter, his vision slowly starting to blur as Donghyun, Woojin and the friends they had invited over welcome Daehwi with party poppers and a loud, “Happy Birthday!”

Jinyoung’s not sure if it’s his imagination playing tricks on him when he sees his hand slowly fade. Time was ticking, and time wasn’t gonna wait for him.

He watches from behind the crowd as Daehwi beams with joy. Today should be the day he should be at his happiest. Today shouldn’t be the day Jinyoung’s gonna ruin him, but he tries to assure himself that the pain is temporary. After today, Daehwi won’t remember him. After today, Daehwi won’t hurt because of him.

“Donghyun hyung told me you planned all of this,” Jinyoung’s vision clears in time to see Daehwi smiling in front of him.

Heaven knows just how much Jinyoung’s gonna miss seeing that smile, the smile that pulls his heartstrings and sends him a million emotions all at once. He holds on to the memory of Daehwi’s smile. He wants to keep that memory with him in the darkness he’ll be sent to after this. He wants to hold onto that small speck of light while he wanders in nothingness for the rest of eternity.

“I did,” Jinyoung tries to smile, his vision slowly starting to spin again. He grips onto the edge of the table for balance. “Are you happy?”

“The happiest!” Daehwi beams.

Jinyoung nods with a smile, the clock behind him telling him it’s a half past eleven. The party is still in full swing, loud music blasting off the speakers. “Meet me in fifteen by the shore. I have something to tell you,” he tries to say through the noise.

He sees something flicker in Daehwi’s eyes, but it could just be from the beam of the disco lights. Daehwi looks like he was about to ask what’s wrong but he surprises Jinyoung by smiling at him.

“Shore. Fifteen. Got it,” Daehwi nods before he heads towards his group of friends that were calling for him earlier.

Jinyoung uses the time to check on himself in the bathroom. His complexion was starting to turn pale. He turns to look at his arm and sees the crack marks slowly growing. The pain is head was now getting stronger.

“It’ll be over soon,” he whispers to himself. “It’ll end soon.”

He looks at his reflection one last time before he heads towards the door, and out the small cottage house he had come to call home one last time.

Jinyoung arrives at the shore three minutes early, but he sees Daehwi already waiting for him there, sitting on the blanket he had laid out on the sand. He approaches him carefully, Daehwi immediately turning in his direction at the sound of footsteps approaching.

Daehwi continues to stare as Jinyoung sits next to him.

“Hey,” Jinyoung tries to say, voice hoarse. “Happy birthday.”

“You fucking idiot,” Daehwi mutters, tears falling from his eyes like a dam. He hits Jinyoung in the chest repeatedly. “You idiot. Jinyoung hyung, you fucking idiot!”

Jinyoung tries to stop him, holding Daehwi’s arms in place while the latter continues to break down in tears. “What’s wrong? Daehwi, what’s wrong?”

“You know damn well what’s wrong,”  Daehwi says through his tears, “I know you’re leaving, hyung. I knew you weren’t gonna stay right from the start.”

Jinyoung watches as Daehwi’s shoulders tense up and down from the crying.

“It’s not that I’m leaving. It’s—“

“It’s because you’re not allowed to stay,” Daehwi finishes for him as he wipes his tear-strained eyes. “I know. I know everything, Mr. Reaper.”

Jinyoung feels his hands shake and his head spin even more. He hasn’t heard him call him that in so long that the title now feels all too foreign for him.

“How did….you know? Humans aren’t supposed to recall anything.”

“I told you I had these weird dreams, remember?” Daehwi responds, his voice breaking. “I knew they weren’t just dreams. They were glimpses of my past, of my old memories. And every single one of them all lead to you. You, in your silver wings and vine crown and immortal aura.”

“Daehwi—“

“I tried not to think too much about it since you seemed so happy here, so I thought everything was fine—“

“Daehwi, please—“

“But then I had a dream of you and a trial. That loud voice in the sky saying you were sent here to be punished. That you were stripped off of your immortality and sent into exile for a hundred days before they lock you up in nothingness.”

Jinyoung takes a deep breath. It wasn’t because the system of heaven was flawed that Daehwi is able to remember. It was because heaven wanted Daehwi to know. They wanted Daehwi to hurt, because hurting Daehwi meant hurting him too.

“It’s because of me, right?” Daehwi points to himself, lips quivering like he’s about to cry again. “You’re being punished because of me. Because you tried to save me. It’s my fault—“

“It’s not!” Jinyoung yells. He turns to look at Daehwi whose eyes were glassy but still looked like they held the cosmos inside them, just like the first time Jinyoung had seen them. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“It’s because you tried to save me—“

“It’s because I wanted to save you,” Jinyoung cuts him off.

Daehwi’s tears continue to fall. “Why? Why would you go through all that for me? For a human bei—“

“Because I fell in love,” Jinyoung smiles sadly. “Isn’t that what you told me? Love makes one take risks, no matter how foolish or reckless. That’s what love does to you.”

Daehwi looks at him wide-eyed. Jinyoung chuckles softly as he rest his head on Daehwi’s shoulder.

“Ah, this wasn’t how I pictured my confession to turn out, but we can’t reverse time now,” Jinyoung whispers under his breath, lips suddenly tasting salt and that’s when he only realizes that he, too, has started crying.

Daehwi lifts Jinyoung’s head up with his hands cupping both sides of his face. Jinyoung’s tear-strained eyes meet his own.

“Say that again,” Daehwi demands. “Say those words again.”

“I’m in love with you, Lee Daehwi,” Jinyoung tells him softly, but with assertion. “I love you in this universe, and beyond. In this life and in the previous ones. I love—“

Daehwi cuts him off when he presses his lips on his, holding on to Jinyoung’s face like he’s afraid to let him go. Daehwi doesn’t want to let him go.

Jinyoung kisses him back with as much force, and he just wants the world to stay still in that moment forever. He presses their foreheads together when he breaks away to catch his breath.

“Was that a token of gratitude for loving you?” he asks.

Daehwi’s eyes soften as he gives him another swift kiss on the lips. “No, it’s a token of love because I’m in love with you too.”

_Five minutes_ , he hears a voice in his head, the pain growing more and more as his head begins to get even dizzier. In his peripheral, he sees his arm start to glitch, slowly fading away.

“Jinyoung,” he hears the worry in Daehwi’s voice. “What’s going on?”

“It’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to forget about me, Daehwi,” Jinyoung smiles at him sadly.

“No!”

“You’re not gonna remember me after this,” Jinyoung whispers under his breath, voice growing weaker.

“My mind won’t, but my heart will,” Daehwi assures, eyes flickering under the soft moonlight. “You are etched in this heart for as long as time exists, Bae Jinyoung.”

“Daehwi…”

“I won’t remember, but my heart will remember the little things that remind me of you,” Daehwi says through tears. “It’ll long for something it doesn’t know, but it’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

“You have to forget me, please—“

“No, I’m not gonna forget. I don’t ever want to forget.”

_One minute._

“Don’t hurt yourself like this, please.”

“That’s how love works, Jinyoung. Hurt comes along with the process.”

_Thirty seconds._

“Daehwi—“

“You are the best thing to ever happen to me, Bae Jinyoung. I’m glad to have had the chance to love you.”

_Fifteen._

Jinyoung smiles through tears, “Lee Daehwi, you are the most beautiful entity to ever grace this multiverse.”

_Ten._

“And I feel like the luckiest being on the galaxy to be able to have met you in all these universes, to have had the chance to hold you, and tell you just how much you mean to me,” he continues as he fades, Daehwi slowly losing his hold on him.

_Five._

“Thank you for letting me love you, Lee Daehwi.”

_One._

“Goodbye.”

 

Jinyoung disappears.

 

❊

 

_Beep beep._

_“Wake up, sleepyhead.”_

“Five more minutes,” Daehwi mumbles, as he leans in to nuzzle his face on his shoulder but he is greeted by nothing but the hollow space beside him. Daehwi opens his eyes and sees the empty, and untouched side of his bed.

He sits up slowly, an empty feeling spreading across his chest. What was he expecting? He has slept on this bed for how many years now, and he had slept on this bed alone, but for some reason, that statement feels heavy just as it feels empty.

It sounds right, but it feels wrong.

“Daehwi,” he hears Youngmin call out to him by his doorframe. “Can you watch over the shop today? Donghyun’s running with a fever.”

“Of course,” Daehwi gets up from his bed, and starts to rummage through his closet, trying to ignore the weird feeling he got when he saw both sides belonging to him. Youngmin was about to leave when Daehwi called him, “Am I going there alone?”

Youngmin raises an eyebrow at him, “You always go alone.”

Daehwi shakes his head, “Oh, right.”

The rest of the day pass by like a blur, the hollow feeling in Daehwi’s chest growing more and more as if something was missing, but he just can’t point out what.

He feels like something else should be there. Daehwi thinks he’s losing it when his mind suddenly zones out and he sees a figure standing across from him, but when he blinks, it disappears.

“Are there any flowers here that mean secret love?” he hears someone ask.

Daehwi wouldn’t have notice a customer come in if he hadn’t spoken up. He puts on his best salesman smile when he turns to him, “Why, yes there…is,” he stops in his tracks when he sees who it was.

The boy blinks at him in confusion. “Uh, is there something wrong?” He leans in to squint on the nametag clipped on his left breastpocket. “Daehwi…oh, that’s a pretty name.”

_Long neck. Big, brown eyes. Full, pink lips. The mole beside his eye. Deep voice._

“Have we met before?” Daehwi suddenly blurts out.

“Is that a pickup line?” The boy smirks. “But no, I don’t thinks so. I think I would have remembered you if we have.”

“Right,” Daehwi shakes his head, “I’m sorry I think I mistook you for someone else.”

“It’s fine, no worries,” the boy replies with a shrug.

Daehwi tries to push the thoughts running in his head at the back of his mind, as he picks up a bouquet of gardenias. “Uh, this is what you’re looking for. Gardenias mean secret love.”

“Oh, those look really pretty. I’ll take them,” the boy smiles at him as he hands him a few bills. "Can you put them in a cute basket or something?"

Daehwi nods as he pulls out a clipboard from underneath the counter. "Sign here with your name and address please," he tells him as he goes to move the gardenias in a flower basket. When he finishes arranging them, Daehwi hands the basket to him. The boy takes it happily.

"Here, you can have one," the boy says shyly as he hands him a piece. Daehwi stares at the gardenia in his hand in surprise. "Well, I'll see you around, I guess."

The boy smiles awkwardly before scrambling out of the flowershop. He's not far out yet when he hears the boy shout, "That was awkward as fuck, Park Jihoon. You owe me dinner!"

Daehwi turns to look at the clipboard he had just signed on, a blot of water landing on the paper and smudging the ink. He looks up at the ceiling and sees no leak. It's only when Daehwi sees his reflection on the glass wall of the flower shop that he realizes thaf he had been crying.

He turns to look at the paper once more.

_Bae Jinyoung._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS FIC ILY it turned out messier than planned so i'll probably come and edit this later but this is how i wanted the story to go so ; n ; please do leave feedback in the comments! i accept any forms of criticism hahahahahaha
> 
> and hmu on twt too! @jinhwi_twt


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